Irigaray suggests that each sex has its own relationship to desire, and as a result each sex has a relation to madness. This calls into question the long tradition of equating maleness with this rationality, and femaleness with irrationality. It also opens the way to the possibility of new ways of writing and thinking about philosophy, for both men and women.
See also: Mary Wollstonecraft • Ludwig Wittgenstein • Simone de Beauvoir • Hélène Cixous • Julia Kristeva
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Political philosophy
APPROACH
Post-colonialism
BEFORE
19th century European scholars research the histories of their colonial subjects.
1940S In the aftermath of World War II, the European colonial empires begin to fragment and collapse.
1952 Frantz Fanon writes Black Skin, White Masks, an early study of the damage caused by colonialism.
AFTER
1988 Indian philosopher Gayatri Spivak publishes Can the Subaltern Speak? examining post-colonialism.
From 2000 Scholars such as Noam Chomsky increasingly interpret American global power according to a model of imperialism.
The Palestinian writer Edward Said was one of the 20th century’s foremost critics of imperialism. In 1978 he published Orientalism, which explored how the depictions of Islamic societies by 19th-century European scholars were closely related to the imperialist ideologies of European states.
In his later work, Said remained critical of all forms of imperialism, past and present. He points out that although we may be critical of empires of the past, these empires saw themselves as bringing civilization to the world—a view not shared by the people they claimed to be helping. Empires plunder and control, while masking their abuses of power by talking about their “civilizing” missions. If this is the case, Said warns, we should be wary of present-day claims by any state undertaking foreign interventions.
The British Empire was one of many 19th-century empires that claimed to believe it was bringing the benefits of civilization to the countries it colonized, such as India.
See also: Frantz Fanon • Michel Foucault • Noam Chomsky
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Epistemology
APPROACH
Feminism
BEFORE
1949 Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex explores the philosophical implications of sexual difference.
1962 French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss writes The Savage Mind, a study of binary oppositions in culture.
1967 Controversial French philosopher Jacques Derrida publishes Of Grammatology, introducing the concept of deconstruction, which Cixous uses in her study of gender.
AFTER
1970s The French literary movement of écriture féminine (“women’s writing”) explores appropriate use of language in feminist thinking, taking its inspiration from Cixous.
In 1975, the French poet, novelist, playwright, and philosopher Hélène Cixous wrote Sorties, her influential exploration of the oppositions that often define the way we think about the world. For Cixous, a thread that runs through centuries of thought is our tendency to group elements of our world into opposing pairs, such as culture/nature, day/night, and head/heart. Cixous claims that these pairs of elements are always by implication ranked hierarchically, underpinned by a tendency to see one element as being dominant or superior and associated with maleness and activity, while the other element or weaker aspect is associated with femaleness and passivity.
Time for change
Cixous believes that the authority of this hierarchical pattern of thinking is now being called into question by a new blossoming of feminist thought. She questions what the implications of this change might be, not only for our philosophical systems, but also for our social and political institutions. Cixous herself, however, refuses to play the game of setting up binary oppositions, of victors and losers, as a structural framework for our thinking. Instead she conjures up the image of “millions of species of mole as yet not recognized”, tunnelling away under the edifices of our world view. And what will happen when these edifices start to crumble? Cixous does not say. It is as if she is telling us that we can make no assumptions, that the only thing we can do is wait and see.
"Woman must write herself and bring woman into literature."
Hélène Cixous
See also: Mary Wollstonecraft • Simone de Beauvoir • Jacques Derrida • Julia Kristeva • Martha Nussbaum
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Political philosophy
APPROACH
Feminism
BEFORE
1792 Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman initiates serious debate about the nature of the roles women are conditioned to play in society.
1807 Georg Hegel explores the dialectic between “master” and “slave” in Phenomenology of Spirit.
1949 Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is published, rapidly becoming a key text in the French feminist movement.
AFTER
1997 In their book Fashionable Nonsense, physics professors Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont criticize Kristeva’s misuse of scientific language.
Bulgarian-born philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva is often regarded as one of the leading voices in French feminism. Nevertheless, the question of whether, or in what way, Kristeva is a feminist thinker has been subject to considerable debate. Part of the reason for this is that for Kristeva herself, the very notion of feminism is problematic. Feminism has arisen out of the conflict women have had with the structures that are associated with male dominance or power. Because of these roots, Kristeva warns, feminism carries with it some of the same male-centered presuppositions that it is seeking to question.
If the feminist movement is to realize its goals fully, Kristeva believes that it is essential for it to be more self-critical. She warns that by seeking to fight what she calls the “power principle” of a male-dominated world, feminism is at risk of adopting yet another form of this principle. Kristeva is convinced that for any movement to be successful in achieving true emancipation, it must constantly question its relationship to power and established social systems—and, if necessary “renounce belief in its own identity.” If the feminist movement fails to take these steps, Kristeva fears that it is in serious danger of developing into little more than an additional strand in the ongoing game of power.
Margaret Thatcher, like many women who have achieved positions of great power, modified her public image to incorporate classic male concepts of strength and authority.
See also: Mary Wollstonecraft • Georg Hegel • Simone de Beauvoir • Hélène Cixous • Martha Nussbaum
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Metaphilosophy
APPROACH
Ethnography
BEFORE
600–400 BCE Greek thinkers such as Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato all study in Egypt, Africa, which was a center of philosophical study in the ancient world.
AFTER
20th century After the retreat of European colonial power, African philosophy begins to flourish across the continent. The growth of anthropology and ethnography also leads to a deeper understanding of indigenous traditions of thought in Africa.
Late 20th century Ghanian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu argues that philosophic sagacity and folk wisdom must be distinguished from philosophy proper.
Henry Odera Oruka was born in Kenya in 1944 and he was interested in metaphilosophy, or philosophizing about philosophy. In his book Sage Philosophy (1994), he looks at why philosophy
in sub-Saharan Africa has often been overlooked, and concludes that it is because it is primarily an oral tradition, while philosophers in general tend to work with written texts. Some people have claimed that philosophy is necessarily connected with written recording, but Oruka disagrees.
In order to explore philosophy within the oral traditions of Africa, Oruka proposed an approach that he called “philosophic sagacity.” He borrowed the ethnographic approach of anthropology, where people are observed in their everyday settings, and their thoughts and actions recorded in context. Oruka himself traveled into villages and recorded conversations with people who were considered wise by their local community. His aim was to find out whether they had systematic views underpinning their perspectives. Those sages who had critically examined their ideas about traditional philosophical topics, such as God or freedom, and found a rational foundation for them could, Oruka believes, be considered philosophic sages. These systematic views deserve to be explored in the light of wider philosophical concerns and questions.
Oruka claims that philosophy has decreed the thoughts of certain races to be more important than others, but it must encompass the sayings of African sages just as it does Greek sages.
See also: Socrates • Friedrich Schlegel • Jacques Derrida
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Ethics
APPROACH
Utilitarianism
BEFORE
c.560 BCE Indian sage and Jainist leader Mahavira calls for strict vegetarianism.
1789 Jeremy Bentham sets out the theory of utilitarianism in his book, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, arguing: “each to count for one, and none for more than one.”
1861 In his book Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill develops Bentham’s utilitarianism from an approach that considers individual acts to one that considers moral rules.
AFTER
1983 American philosopher Tom Regan publishes The Case for Animal Rights.
The Australian philosopher Peter Singer became known as one of the most active advocates of animal rights following the publication of his book Animal Liberation in 1975. Singer takes a utilitarian approach to ethics, following the tradition developed by Englishman Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century.
Utilitarianism asks us to judge the moral value of an act by the consequences of that act. For Bentham, the way to do this is by calculating the sum of pleasure or pain that results from our actions, like a mathematical equation.
Animals are sentient beings
Singer’s utilitarianism is based on what he refers to as an “equal consideration of interests.” Pain, he says, is pain, whether it is yours or mine or anybody else’s. The extent to which non-human animals can feel pain is the extent to which we should take their interests into account when making decisions that affect their lives, and we should refrain from activities that cause such pain. However, like all utilitarians, Singer applies the “greatest happiness principle”, which says that we should make decisions in such a way that they result in the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Singer points out that he has never said that no experiment on an animal could ever be justified; rather that we should judge all actions by their consequences, and “the interests of animals count among those consequences”; they form part of the equation.
"The value of life is a notoriously difficult ethical question."
Peter Singer
See also: Jeremy Bentham • John Stuart Mill
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Political philosophy
APPROACH
Marxism
BEFORE
1807 Georg Hegel publishes The Phenomenology of the Spirit, laying the groundwork for Marxist thought.
1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish their Communist Manifesto.
1867 Marx publishes the first volume of Capital (Das Kapital), a treatise on political economy.
1899 In The Interpretation of Dreams, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud claims that much of human behavior is driven by unconscious forces.
1966 Psychoanalytical theorist Jacques Lacan, one of Žižek’s major influences, revisits Freud’s ideas in Écrits.
The idea that all the best Marxist analyses have traditionally been analyses of failure appears in an interview with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek given in 2008. In this interview, Žižek was asked about the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968, when a period of reform, aimed at decentralizing and democratizing the country, was brutally brought to an end by the Soviet Union and its allies.
Žižek’s claim is that the crushing of the reforms became the very thing that later sustained a myth held by the political left—namely that, had the reforms gone ahead, some kind of social and political paradise would have followed. According to Žižek, those on the political left are prone to dwelling on their failures, because doing so allows myths to be generated about what would have happened if they had succeeded. Žižek says that these failures allow those on the left to maintain a “safe moralistic position”, because their failures mean that they are never in power, or truly tested by action. He describes this stance as the “comfortable position of resistance”, which allows an avoidance of the real issues—such as re-evaluating the nature of political revolution. For Žižek, a dedicated Marxist, serious questions about the nature of political power are obscured by endlessly trying to justify utopia’s elusiveness.
The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 led to the end of the short-lived “Prague Spring” period of liberalization. All moves toward democracy were suppressed until 1989.
See also: Immanuel Kant • Georg Hegel • Karl Marx • Martin Heidegger
DIRECTORY
Though the ideas already presented in this book show the broad range of philosophical thought expressed by some of history’s best minds, there are many more people who have helped to shape the story of philosophy. Some of these thinkers—such as Empedocles, Plotinus, or William of Ockham—have had ideas that form the starting point for other, more well-known theories, and their influence on later philosophers is clear. Some, such as Friedrich Schelling or Gilles Deleuze, have taken the works of previous philosophers and added an interesting twist that sheds new light on the subject. Whatever their relationship is to the history of philosophy, the people discussed below have all helped to broaden the boundaries of philosophical thought.
ANAXIMANDER
c.610–546 BCE
Born in Miletus, in what is now southwest Turkey, Anaximander was a pupil of Thales, the “father” of Western philosophy. Like Thales, he thought there was a single basic substance from which everything had evolved. He decided it must be infinite and eternal and called it apeiron (“indefinite”). Anaximander also challenged Thales’ suggestion that Earth was supported by a sea of water, reasoning that this sea would have to be supported by something else. Lacking evidence for this supporting structure, he declared that Earth was an object hanging in space. He went on to publish what is believed to be the first map of the world.
See also: Thales of Miletus
ANAXIMENES OF MILETUS
c.585–528 BCE
Like other Milesian philosophers, Anaximenes searched for the fundamental material from which the universe was made. He opted for air, pointing out that just as air gives life to the human body, so a universal kind of air gives life to the cosmos. He was the first thinker on record to use observed evidence to support his ideas. Blowing with pursed lips produced cold air; with relaxed lips, warm air. He argued, therefore, that when something condenses, it cools; when it expands it heats up. Likewise, when air condenses, it becomes visible;
first as mist, then as rain, and ultimately, he believed, as rock, thus giving birth to Earth.
See also: Thales of Miletus
ANAXAGORAS
c.500–428 BCE
Born in Ionia, off the southern coast of present-day Turkey, Anaxagoras played a key role in making Athens the world center of philosophy and scientific enquiry. Central to his thinking were his views on the material world and cosmology. He reasoned that everything in the material world was made up of a small part of everything else, otherwise it could not have come into being. Sentenced to death for impiety after insisting that the sun was a fiery rock, he fled Athens and spent his final years in exile.
See also: Thales of Miletus
EMPEDOCLES
c.490–430 BCE
Empedocles was a member of a high-ranking political family in the then-Greek colony of Sicily. His knowledge of the natural world led to him being credited with miraculous powers, such as the ability to cure diseases and control the weather. He reasserted the notion of Heraclitus that we live in an ever-changing world, as opposed to Parmenides’ theory that everything is ultimately one fixed entity. He believed that four elements—fire, water, earth, and air—continually combine, move apart, and recombine in a finite number of ways. This idea remained part of Western thinking up until the Renaissance period.
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